


Don't Ever Leave Your Past Behind

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: She could have had it all, she could have had her.
Relationships: Kelley O'Hara/Hope Solo, Kelley O'Hara/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 8





	Don't Ever Leave Your Past Behind

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt**   
>  _Hope’s feelings after seeing Kelley kiss her girlfriend_

Hope sees the kiss, of course she does.

She watches as Kelley searches the crowd, and remembers all the times she was there on the field, searching with her. Searching out the faces they knew were waiting for them.

Adrian, and then Jerramy.

For Kelley, it had always been her parents, her brother and sister. When there was a girlfriend, she was always an afterthought. A secret for the dark corners and the closed doors.

Of course their own celebrations were just that. Secret. Hidden. Furtive and fumbling.

They were so young then.

Kelley was so young then.

All soft curves and endless energy. All dreams and hope and time.

A kid.

And she’d loved her.

—

It had happened in London, the first time. A bad night with her long-distance lover, and Kelley’s eagerness to please had been so easy to take advantage of. The voices in her head so easy to quiet with those searching lips.

She’d known that the younger woman would fall for her. It had been inevitable, half hero-worship and half the first blush of what might be love.

What Hope hadn’t known, what she hadn’t seen coming was her own swift fall into love.

There was no logic for it, no conceivable reason. This kid from the South, not even sure of who she was yet. But still–maybe it was the easy way she had about her, the smooth-talk, the swift and fatal grin. Maybe it was the way she was quiet in the dark, the way her hands took such gentle care with Hope’s body, the way she fell asleep after, that little snore and wild hair falling into her face.

It had been terrifying, of course. To be so close to something–someone–so pure and good. So untouched by the world.

Hope had run. She’d had to. She’d had no choice.

Every fall ended in injury–and maybe if she ran first, Hope had reasoned, she could keep Kelley from falling in after her.

It hadn’t worked. Not for her. Not for Kelley.

It had only made her darker. The both of them.

But Hope was used to living in the dark. And she knew–this, she could survive.

—

She’d grown up, Hope thinks to herself as she watches Kelley cross the dais to receive her medal. Her curves melting into angles that could cut like Damascus steel. Muscle and sinew and bone. Hard now, forged by time and fire, disappointment and loss.

But still, still, there is the Kelley she loves. That curving grin, those smiling eyes. Still Kelley teases and plays and lives in every moment of joy she can find. And Hope wonders what else is new and what is still, ever, the same.

If she were to pull Kelley close, would she taste the same? Would her lips still curve into that soft, sweet smile as Hope whispered everything she’d needed to say for so long? Would the scars still be there, how many new paths would Hope find traced into the road map of her skin?

Hope watches and the ache settles deep into her bones.

It could have been them.

It could have been her face Kelley searched for in the crowd of celebrating spectators. Her shirt Kelley tugged down. Her lips whispering love and congratulations and promises of more to come against the sweaty, warm skin of the woman she loved.

And Hope has to turn away, a shaking hand pressed to her belly as she thinks of the life she ran away from. The love she’d never believed she deserved.

Behind her, the crowd roars as the champions lift their trophy high, as they scream with joy and relief and their certain and resolute belief in the power of miracles and dreams. But Hope can’t watch any longer. Can’t see the joy there on the face of the woman she loves–she was always good at running, it was the letting go she never quite mastered–without feeling the pain of there’s no going back. No return to the road she wished she’d chosen.

At least–Hope thinks as she bites her lip in the warm, heavy French evening air–at least she has her memories.

Young and free and in love forever.

**Author's Note:**

> "A Big World," Joel Adams


End file.
